It’s taken me a while to get around to writing this blog post. I wanted to write it when I had time to think so I could give it the justice it deserved! You see this wedding was the marriage of my best friend and her man. We’ve been through a LOT together and last year began a journey of pregnancy together too!! Not only that, we were 3 weeks a part and both expecting girls. Our older children are very different ages so although we were both about to have our 3rd child, this was the first time we were going to experience it together and we were both super excited about it.

In between eating cake, comparing ever swelling bellies and talking about leaky boobs and baby sick we also started to plan her wedding for 2017… needless to say with Justine being an event designer for weddings and me a professional wedding photographer there was a constant stream of ideas and her pinterest mood board got a hammering!! It was hard to imagine our daughters would be running around causing havoc come the wedding day.

Just ahead of our joint baby shower in November, Justine found a lump… yep that dreaded one. Mostly you think nah it’s fine, it’s just hormones, you’re pregnant, it won’t be anything serious and that’s how the conversations went until December when Justine was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was then induced early and little (or not so little!) Verity was born at 36 weeks to allow the doctors to start treatment. I’m just gonna insert in here what a frigging absolute hero Justine has been during this time, through her chemo and beyond. Yes there were some dark days but she absolute rocked the ass out of this cancer bashing business and one of the ways she was able to do this was to do it united with Mark… yes the nutter brought her wedding forward. The wedding not only gave her something to focus on and look forward to whilst poisoning her body to save her life, it gave her something to control! A self confessed control freak needs that in her life when everything else is in the hands of everyone else!!

So quite literally running a small business and planning a wedding from hospital and whilst bringing up three children under 5yrs old, Justine’s wedding was set for the beginning of April this year, where she would be 4 rounds through her chemo journey.

The wedding day was actually perfect! I can’t begin to describe how lush it felt to watch this pair say their vows to one another. As one of the “Best Girls” I had lots of other responsibilities such as making sure her toddler made it down the aisle with his sign, read a lovely piece during the service without crying and so on. I didn’t photograph the entire day but I did capture Justine getting ready in the morning and was privileged to take their bride & groom portraits after the ceremony.

From the most flowers I’ve ever seen at a wedding to a surprise beach boys tribute act for the groom from the bride… I was way too busy celebrating, crying, laughing and dancing to be able to show you any of the details!

What an amazing day, so bloody proud of you both.